


Game Face

by Lindentreeisle (Captainblue)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kink Meme, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-03
Updated: 2011-03-03
Packaged: 2017-10-16 01:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captainblue/pseuds/Lindentreeisle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Promptfic: "You don't get to be the Napoleon of crime by being SOOO CHANGEABLE. You get there by being sneaky and manipulative and ALWAYS in control of the situation."  (Spoilers for TGG, natch.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game Face

As soon as he drops the outer door behind him, he breaks into a jog to meet the limo just pulling up to the curb. He doesn't want to miss a moment of this, so he slides inside and locks his eyes on the flatscreen display mounted behind the front passenger seat. It's already playing the live feed from inside the pool.

"Round the block," he orders the driver, and drinks in the spectacle of Sherlock Holmes tearing his new best friend's clothes off. _Oh._ Well, the coat and the explosives vest anyway, which is good enough.

He barely registers the sleekly-dressed young man seated next to him; of course he's aware of the man's presence, knows his name, his _life_ ; has him vetted six ways from Sunday in fact, but right now he's not important. All that's important is the expression on Sherlock's face, which is annoyingly obscured, but- ah, there we go. He's flinging the bomb across the floor, and the camera can capture him now. Revulsion, helpless anger, a hint of terror- oh beautiful.

An open bottle of water is placed in Jim's hand, and he sucks half of it down and wipes his mouth on the proffered handkerchief. The Irish accent always takes the most out of him, it's like having a burr stuck in the back of his throat. He doesn't take his eyes from the screen: he wants to see every facial tic, hear every word being piped in from the bevy of hidden microphones. Sherlock dashes out the door- far too late to even glimpse the limo of course, the man is brilliant and he has good instincts, but he can be disappointingly slow to act on them- and then he's pacing and playing with the gun. Jim hopes Sherlock remembered to put the safety back on, it would be a shame if he carelessly blew his own brains out at this point.

"Earpiece," Jim says, and the man next to him fits it expertly into his left ear. It's rather better than the clumsy model he chose for his hostages and it slots neatly into place and leaves no exterior sign of its presence. Now the slightly echoing voices from within the natatorium are humming intimately into his eardrum from milimeters away.

"I'm fine," Sherlock says, and Jim silently crows _Liar!_ This is proof, if he needed it, that he is the better man. Sherlock is too raw, too vulnerable, and frankly too foolishly open; if Jim had this kind of weakness in him, which he doesn't, he wouldn't be trumpeting it for all the world to see. Of course Sherlock doesn't know that Jim is watching, but someone is _always_ watching, that's the whole point.

John Watson collapses- sadly predictable, but he's just a prop in this scene after all- and they are sharing a moment of levity, how sweet. Giggling because they think the game is over, when Jim has barely begun to play. Time to show Sherlock just how foolish his assumptions are.

The limo pulls up and Jim steps out, strides back to the building- a different door this time, just for laughs. And because he wants to come in behind Sherlock, so that the expression on his face before he masters it and turns round will be perfectly captured by the camera above the main doorway.

He will watch this video in freeze frame after, and for all that Sherlock has given away thus far his reaction when Jim walks back in the door will be best of all. Which will dominate: fear, anger, shock? Desperation? Jim can hardly wait.

As he reaches the door, Seb's voice murmurs in his ear, cutting in over the secure channel. "I see you. Are we go?"

"Go," Jim confirms, and in his mind's eye he can see the laser sights winking back on, flashing their message across John Watson's chest for his adversary to read: _Time to put your game face back on, Sherlock Holmes._

Jim's smile is painfully wide as he opens the door and readies his next move.


End file.
